A home win for US journalism

Saturday 8 November 2008 19.01 EST
First published on Saturday 8 November 2008 19.01 EST

It was 'the longest, most expensive election in history' - and it ended with the most expensive night. Never in media history had so many pundits, presenters and digital demons dished up so much stuff. What did it mean for newspapers? Probably, in Britain, that simple still works best on the news stand. 'Mr President' cried the Indy, clearing every jot of its front page for a smiling Obama. But, as the bills and ratings came in, there were more complex lessons to be learnt.

The most heartening lesson for reporters and audiences alike was that the change we most needed came from a click on the remote or a lunge for your laptop. One medium couldn't handle all the messages: the facts, figures, swings, tears and soaring moments of emotion. You needed TV for the panoramas in a Chicago park, for the weeping faces and visions of hope; you needed computers to keep your detail bank brimming through the hours of waiting, and bloggers to keep your spirits up; you needed newspapers for some notably fine, considered writing from Gary Younge, Niall Ferguson, Bonnie Greer and many others; and radio, perhaps, to fill in the chinks.

In short, nobody but Barack Obama 'won' this fight. Every means of communication had its time and place. Those who think the future is Fox or YouTube alone have another think coming. The whole picture still needs much, much more of everything.

But another take on change provides rather less for specifically British comfort. This time, for a modest premium, you could sit in your front parlour through the small hours and see everything happening, or stalling, on BBC, ITN, Sky, MSNBC, CNN and Fox - with optional side trips to al-Jazeera via Moscow and Paris. The wonder of rolling news rolled remorselessly from screen to screen, swallowing cash as it went. This was head-to-head competition on an international stage - and (whisper it gently) we lost.

ITV did bargain basement, with Lieutenant Alastair Stewart in London pressing his own buttons. Sky splashed out and crossed the Atlantic in modest platoons. But the biggest home battalion, of course, settled in Washington DC, Colonel Dimbleby commanding as usual. It was a ratings success, at least on the domestic front: 1.3 million viewers up to 6am, 25 per cent of the audience. It was not, though, the public service of first choice.

David seemed jet-lagged, devoid of spark, letting the focus potter between second-division pundits. Heaven bless Matt Frei, who knows his onions, and Simon Schama, who grows them for a living. Warmest beneficences to Justin Webb, who's played an absolute blinder. But for true expertise you need American journalism on its home turf, not UK visitors claiming core wisdom, yet always slightly off the pace.

There was John Simpson, touring the Windy City on his thirteenth US campaign - plus Gavin Hewitt, 'who is also in Chicago, but not I think in the same place', observed David glumly. But we didn't want familiar faces from Shepherds Bush reciting familiar things. We wanted super pundits: David Gergen on CNN, the reviled Karl Rove on Fox. We wanted the nearest thing to hard information we could get.

John King on CNN - a clear champion - provided that as everyone else faffed. His one-touch computer had every county result in 2004 to compare with 2008 as the votes came in, so you could see in a trice whether Obama was outstripping John Kerry. That wasn't the only technically wizard stroke of the evening: Fox's State of the Union Room lay somewhere between Chatsworth and the Acropolis; MSNBC's Virtual Capitol Hill was a whirring wedding cake of facts; and CNN (courtesy of 35 different cameras in a Chicago tent) managed to plant a hologram blonde called Jessica back in HQ, giggling with Wolf Blitzer as though she was seven feet, not 700 miles, away.

Amazing! And somewhat more amazing, alas, than Jeremy Vine with his Peter Snow Model Two back at the London ranch. Jeremy was well-briefed, intelligent and unflappable - but he didn't have the software of gizmos to compete. Nor could he or anyone else on the team call state results fast or authoritatively. There was always a lag, always a sense of waiting for somebody else to go first.

So, if you were totally absorbed, you abandoned the Beeb and let Americans report America - in terms that grow familiar as our television grows more American, too, and our newspapers hunt for readers and internet revenue over the pond.

On the night that mattered, we were more of a 51st state than ever before. On the night, the perspective that foreign reporting by foreigners can bring seemed secondhand. On the night, we were swamped, outgunned, out-spent, digitally drubbed. Can we change that? No, we (probably) can't. Barack Obama is the President of one media world, like it or not.

Why Obama's triumph is no joke

'Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make ridiculous,' wrote Joe Queenan in the Guardian. He meant Republican politicians wilting before a wave of satire. Enter Tina Fey, Jon Stewart et al 'and before you knew it, Sarah Palin was a viewed as a clown, a dolt, a joke, and McCain was condemned as a nitwit for selecting her ... The sheer emotive power of naked, unalloyed satire' had done them both in.

Well, perhaps - it's one more turnip to throw into the cauldron of confessions about media bias, real or alleged (does 282 to 152 newspaper endorsements for Democrat over Republican indicate percipience or prejudice?).

But there is an awkward next question. If you saw Barack Obama on the Jon Stewart show, you also saw Stewart simpering meek adoration. And can Tina Fey do Michelle Obama? No she can't.

Indeed, you can't easily see any swift move to mimic the presently saintly Barack, who got a very soft ride on the satire express. Women, from Hillary to Sarah, got their lumps. Call for Chris Rock and get him in training, quick.

All the news is still fit to print

And on the night after the night before, USA Today printed 500,000 extra copies, while the likes of the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune added 200,000 more. News is usually the unexpected, what you didn't expect rather than what you did. News is Obama beating Hillary or McCain winning New Hampshire, or the President elect's grandmother dying a few hours too soon. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning weren't a surprise. This was an interminably forecast triumph.

But it still, in its momentous, joy-soaked way, had the power to engage and enfold. It was another Mandela cum Berlin Wall moment, an I-was-there time - and somehow the New York Times's digital souvenir edition, courtesy of Facebook, didn't quite hit the artefact spot. That needs a yellowing newspaper stowed in your bottom drawer, brought out years on for the kids or the grandchildren. It may not be the future of print, to be sure - but it's more than a glorious past.

Independent quality needs added money

Last week saw cautious reports, fully denied, that the Independent might be for sale. This week's ABC sales report for October brooks no denial; something must be done.

October was an up-and-down month for Fleet Street. Some papers, such as the FT, went up a bit on September, others edged back. But both the Independent and the Independent on Sunday were more than 9 per cent down in a month, and the figures for year on year are stark; 16.3 per cent for the daily, 21.4 per cent on Sunday. These are drops even Richard Desmond would gag over.

Is it quite as bad as it looks? Not quite. The powers-that-be at the Indy have begun to slice away some of the bulk giveaway copies and foreign sales that have helped to keep the headline total afloat. Perhaps 9,000 or so copies have gone that way in a year, but there is still much too little left.

It's the eternal Indy dilemma. It doesn't make money. Its excellence is sustained by a benevolent Irish proprietor who has too many dissident shareholders on his hands. The losses may not be so great after all; £10m-£12m would probably see the ship back on an even keel. But that money is not available for investment in marketing or a thinner paper and there is no choice but crunch in a credit crunch.

Is there any chance of a sale in the offing? You couldn't rule that out. The paper, with a new editor and new team, is livelier and more focused than for some time past. But the question beyond such improvement is tough; will the two Indies be given the space and resources to halt a precipitate slide? A pound a copy for the daily doesn't look a very bright decision now. Is anybody out there in Dublin having second thoughts?